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[kisame12794]

I having trouble with my RTD, what with real life and such, plus I would rather spend time on one RTD than several.

[lawastooshort]

Yeah starting two by accident is silly, and a HHGRTD would require a bit of work to do nicely, I think.

[Aninimouse]

A RtD. Based on Pikmin. Think about it.

A race for treasure, with players playing as captains controlling sentient plant-things in a quest to kill everything that is not a Pikmin and sell its corpse and/or loot for profit.

I thought up this idea myself yesterday, and I'm actually kind of surprised no one seems to have done anything like it yet. I've always been a huge fan of Pikmin, and would love to GM a game based on them.

[empfan]

A RtD. Based on Pikmin. Think about it.

A race for treasure, with players playing as captains controlling sentient plant-things in a quest to kill everything that is not a Pikmin and sell its corpse and/or loot for profit.

I thought up this idea myself yesterday, and I'm actually kind of surprised no one seems to have done anything like it yet. I've always been a huge fan of Pikmin, and would love to GM a game based on them.

Go for it, I'd join.  Just try not to go overboard with brand names.

[Aninimouse]

Go for it, I'd join.  Just try not to go overboard with brand names.

I probably wouldn't go into that very much at all, seeing as no one would actually be able to read anything on all the bottle caps and trinkets they find.


Here are two questions for those of you who would be interested though:


1

I'm guessing you would prefer a combat system centered purely around Pikmin, and their strengths/weaknesses, like in the actual games.


   But maybe there could be the choice/possibility for a little more emphasis on equipment. Upgrades for your spacesuit, and weapons of some sort to add a little more depth to things. Nothing too unfriendly to the lore/canon like Machine Guns, Grenade Launchers and such, but more along the lines of Miniature Cannons that fire the smaller bomb rocks, or an amplified whistle that could have a chance of stunning the enemy.
   Most of the emphasis would still be on using the Pikmin themselves. Though you could choose to either focus solely on Pikmin Based Combat, or both Pikmin and Weapon Based Combat. If you chose to only focus your skills on using Pikmin, you'd be very effective with them, but you would be in trouble if you managed to lose your Pikmin.
   If you chose to focus your skills on using Weapons and Equipment, you wouldn't be taking down groups of enemies on your own; You would still be using Pikmin to do the bulk of fighting. However you would be able to use weapons to support them, and if you managed to lose your Pikmin, you'd have a better chance at escaping from your enemies unscathed.

(Or maybe you have an entirely different idea for how things should work.)


2

Should it be cooperative? All of the players are new employees of the now prospering Hocotate Freight company, sent back to the Pikmin Planet in search of more Treasure.

Or competitive? After Olimar and Louie had brought back all of those valuable artifacts from the Pikmin Planet, other, rivaling companies decided to send their own explorers to loot the planet of all its treasure.

[Gatleos]

1
There can only be so many types of Pikmin (Or can there? Maybe a big part of the game should be players genetically engineering new varieties of Pikmin? ), so for the purpose of player customization I think it would be best to have equipment. Handheld weapons, healing items, basically the kind of stuff you found in Pikmin 2.

2
I think cooperative works better, but the competitive scenario you mentioned might not be a bad source of enemies. The story would probably do better if the players had something sapient to fight in addition to the scores of animals they'll be murdering. You could have mining facilities and Pikmin slave labor camps (did I just say that?) owned by the bad guys for the players to invade with their armies.


There's a lot of room for fleshing out the system.

[Bdthemag]

I'll just pop in and say that in my opinion competitive RTD's seem to not last as long as co-op ones from what I've seen.

[monk12]

Mostly because competitive RTDs (and games in general) lack plot- there's probably an interesting Indiana Jones-esque "race to find the Unobtanium" plot in there somewhere.

[Dermonster]

And then Gatleos has a skull face suddenly.

Hmm.

[Aninimouse]

You could have mining facilities and Pikmin slave labor camps (did I just say that?)

Hahaha!..

That's horrible...

1
There can only be so many types of Pikmin (Or can there? Maybe a big part of the game should be players genetically engineering new varieties of Pikmin? ), so for the purpose of player customization I think it would be best to have equipment. Handheld weapons, healing items, basically the kind of stuff you found in Pikmin 2.

Well at the end of the first Pikmin you do see quite a few more colours of Pikmin, in the form of onions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geIe011iI9k  (1:35)

So I guess part of it could be discovering the so far, unseen, but existing types of Pikmin.

2
I think cooperative works better, but the competitive scenario you mentioned might not be a bad source of enemies. The story would probably do better if the players had something sapient to fight in addition to the scores of animals they'll be murdering. You could have mining facilities and Pikmin slave labor camps (did I just say that?) owned by the bad guys for the players to invade with their armies.

Yeah, I think I'll be going with that. Cooperative, but with 'sapient' enemies. (Probably not immediately, it'd probably be something discovered after an initial bit of treasure hunting.)

Maybe they could be the ones doing the genetic engineering of Pikmin?

[Gatleos]

And then Gatleos has a skull face suddenly.

Hmm.

HE HAS WITHERED TO NOTHING LIKE THE RTD HE ONCE INHABITED.
Seriously, it's been like that for two days.

1
There can only be so many types of Pikmin (Or can there? Maybe a big part of the game should be players genetically engineering new varieties of Pikmin? ), so for the purpose of player customization I think it would be best to have equipment. Handheld weapons, healing items, basically the kind of stuff you found in Pikmin 2.

Well at the end of the first Pikmin you do see quite a few more colours of Pikmin, in the form of onions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geIe011iI9k  (1:35)

So I guess part of it could be discovering the so far, unseen, but existing types of Pikmin.

Well yeah, what I was getting at though is that any player can use any type of Pikmin if he/she wants. You need a way to set the players apart and give them unique skills and contributions. This is the soul of the adventurer party. You could have one player that's really strong and can throw lots of Pikmin in one turn, another that can fashion groups of Pikmin into an amorphous body shield somehow, etc.

The genetic experimentation could be like a Pikmin tech tree that the party shares, fueled by loot and various exotic materials needed to produce new varieties of Onion. The basic idea would be that the players have unique skills and abilities for fighting, building, negotiating and so on, but all draw from the party-owned pool of Pikmin. It would be a strategy game of passing Pikmin between party members and combining the attributes of players and Pikmin types to overcome obstacles.

Come to think of it, this could make a great d20 system... *runs out of thread*

[Aninimouse]

Well yeah, what I was getting at though is that any player can use any type of Pikmin if he/she wants. You need a way to set the players apart and give them unique skills and contributions. This is the soul of the adventurer party. You could have one player that's really strong and can throw lots of Pikmin in one turn, another that can fashion groups of Pikmin into an amorphous body shield somehow, etc.

The genetic experimentation could be like a Pikmin tech tree that the party shares, fueled by loot and various exotic materials needed to produce new varieties of Onion.The basic idea would be that the players have unique skills and abilities for fighting, building, negotiating and so on, but all draw from the party-owned pool of Pikmin. It would be a strategy game of passing Pikmin between party members and combining the attributes of players and Pikmin types to overcome obstacles.

That is, minus the bit on genetic experimentation, almost exactly what I had in mind. (Which is part of the reason why I'm going to be doing the RTD, because of how cool the system itself seems like it would be. I'm really interested in seeing how people would/are going to play.)


New Questions/Mini-Polls:

1:
Regarding the 'limit' on the amount of Pikmin in the field at one time. Should it be;

• 100, just as the original games were
• Player Count * X (Which is what I originally intended on doing, as it makes the most sense, but maybe one of you have a better idea.)
• Some other, arbitrary number

2:
Would you think a more Complex, or a more Simple Skill/Stats system would be better for the game? I'm thinking Complex, as the game would be strategy based anyhow.

[Gatleos]

I'd go with
int pikmin_num=player_num*100;
and a complex stat system.

The question is, how are you going to handle rolls? If there's a complex stat system, will luck play as big a role as it does in vanilla RtD? Each player will be controlling a small army in addition to themselves, so you may need to split player turns into separate rolls for player action and Pikmin activity.

[IronyOwl]

Player*X, Simple. I'm all in favor of a complex system if you can actually run it, but that tends to wear out fast.

[Aninimouse]

I'd go with
int pikmin_num=player_num*100;
and a complex stat system.

I had the thought to go with a number more like int pikmin_num=player_num*50; or even 30. I think that might force players to put a little more thought into "What colours of Pikmin do I bring?"
(And to prevent me from having to throw dozens of enemies at once into a single battle so it's actually a challenge.)

The question is, how are you going to handle rolls? If there's a complex stat system, will luck play as big a role as it does in vanilla RtD?

I don't think it'll play nearly as big of a role as it does in vanilla RtD, but that isn't to say it's still not going to play a large-ish role.

Each player will be controlling a small army in addition to themselves, so you may need to split player turns into separate rolls for player action and Pikmin activity.

That was what I had intended.

I'm all in favor of a complex system if you can actually run it,

I'm used to more simple systems, but I think I could handle a complex system. I've run 'Medieval' style forum games for a long time and the only reason I don't actually use a complex system for them is that all players are independent and only need to cooperate if they want to. As I like to say:

For every guy that's in a life-or-death battle against an army of angry demons, there's another guy who just wants to open a door.

A cooperative RtD wouldn't really have that problem though.

but that tends to wear out fast.

Do you mean wears out for the GM, or the players?